Pen Allt-Mawr

Cairn(s)

Pen Allt-Mawr (Cairn(s)) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 28 images, 1 fieldnote, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

Images (click to view fullsize)

Fieldnotes

Approaching from the south-east (27.3.2010), this is an easy walk along the edge of a grassy saddle from Pen Cerrig-calch summit cairns. The path follows the eastern edge of the plateau, overlooking a steep drop to the valley below. There are extensive views of the central Black Mountains ridge (Waun Fach and Pen y Gadair Fawr) to the north-east.

The summit itself is at the northern-most tip of the plateau, beyond which the land drops steeply away and the wind whips up over the escarpment. The summit cairn itself is typically ruined, with a heavily eroded concrete trig pillar next to it. During a brief stop in this rather bleak spot a glider flew past at eye-level.

The second cairn lies on the western edge of the plateau, at SO206238, between the summit and the further pair of cairns at Pen Gloch-y-pibwr. This cairn has a great view of Mynydd Troed, below and to the north-west. Whatever statement was being made by the people who built these cairns, these are high places, overlooking a wild and untamed landscape even four thousand years later. But ... not a place to linger in a biting north wind, so it's off round the escarpment edge to Pen Gloch-y-pibwr cairns.